Vocational Guidance as Correlate of Secondary School Students’ Interest, Achievement and Choice of Agricultural Science in Benue State, Nigeria

Abstract

Secondary school students are often faced with the difficulty of making realistic choices that can stand the test of time when left alone. Choices made at this level can either mar or lead to the realization of one’s career aspirations. The main purpose of this study was to investigate vocational guidance as a correlate of Senior Secondary School students’ interest, achievement, and choice of Agricultural Science in Benue State, Nigeria. Three objectives, three research questions, and null hypotheses guided the study. The study adopted a correlation design. The population for the study was 11,381 which comprised 11,010 upper basic 9 students, 347 teachers of Agricultural Science, and 24 Guidance Counsellors with a sample size of 386. The three instruments used for data collection were titled “Vocational Guidance Questionnaire (VGQ), Agriculture Achievement Test (AAT), and Interest Inventory in Agriculture (IIA). Five (5) experts validated the instruments for face and content validities and were trial tested on 30 respondents. Split-half, Cronbach-Alpha, and Kuder Richardson 21 methods were used to obtain reliability coefficients of .988, .990 and 0.713 for VGQ, IIA, and AAT respectively. The data collected were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient-PPMCC (r) to answer the research questions and null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that there was a highly positive relationship between vocational guidance and students’ interest/ choice of agricultural science. The study recommended creating ingenious activities that will pique students’ interest in Agricultural science, making vocational guidance early enough to help students choose relevant subjects.